Mass and the Unwashed Masses

Peter J. Scaer posted this on Facebook earlier today, 11/21/2023, and it is too good not to share.

Mass and the Unwashed Masses

Is the church's liturgy only for a few, for the educated, the cultured, and well read? Hardly. Though the liturgy, by its very nature and mystery invites education, catechesis, and teaching. In fact, the liturgy is great for little children who can't yet read, and for those who never learned. The liturgy is wonderful for those who eyesight has dimmed, whose capacity isn't what it used to be. The liturgical rhythm enters into the soul's deepest places, embeds itself within the mind and heart.

Why is it that the average Roman Catholic in the pew does not believe in the real presence? It's not because of what the church says, but by the casual way in which the supper is offered and distributed. The same I'm sure goes for us in the LCMS. Say that Christ's offers his true body and blood, but then, if the ministers are dressed as if they were sales people, if they treat the elements like fast food, if bodily reverence is nowhere to be found, people will get the message. It must not be all that special.

The American Evangelical world of course has no clue in such matters. If baptism is just a commitment ceremony, and if the supper is a reenactment, then a certain seriousness may be called for, but there's no reason for solemnity. For much of the Big Box church world, there is nothing approximating the Temple. (No wonder, they hope it's rebuilt.) Could we imagine the High Priest entering the Holy of Holies in street clothes, big smile on his face after an inspirational life lesson, music from the praise band? But we do have something holier still. If we believed in the priesthood of all believers, truly believed it, then we would encourage the awe and reverence appropriate to God's dwelling among us, Christ's giving of flesh and blood, a font from which springs forth life and forgiveness.

The church service has never been about, should never be about, defining a class of people as high class, but should be conducted in a way that is appropriate to the proceedings. Standing up for the gospel is an act of reverence, as when grandma enters the room. Kneelers offer an opportunity for bodily posture that matches spiritual reality. The judge, robed in black, approaches the bench, and the courtroom is hushed into silence. A pin dropped is noise too loud for the ceremony of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The church service is all about sacred space, the Lord of all speaking and working among us. The church is our home, but Christ is the head of that home, and being in the Father's house means something. Little Children rightly feel comfortable there, for it is their home, they are the baptized, and the Lord's arms are wide open in embrace, and his hand is given for them in blessing. But we should never grow so casual as to be disdainful, so that we might lose awe, and forget where we are. Indeed, it is said that Ronald Reagan never entered the Oval Office without jacket and tie. May seem a bit much. But it was his way of reminding himself of the sacred duty with which he had been entrusted. And so also the sacred liturgy does well to be in harmony with the sacred things that we confess are taking place.

Keep It at Its Appointed Time

Some time ago, I was reading a blog post about traditions, and that got me considering their importance in the rhythm of life. We need traditions for communal welfare. Whether instilled in us or formed by us, traditions set aside definite occasions for reflection, joy, or solace—and sometimes all three at once. For instance, people have family traditions which allow the parents and children to enjoy one other and further strengthen their bond to one another.

In the same way, God’s people are called to keep traditions. Consider the following:

On the Sabbath days, carry no burdens with you from your houses, nor do any work. Instead, sanctify the Sabbath days, as I commanded your fathers.… “Thus it shall come to pass that if you hear Me,” says the Lord, “so as not to carry burdens through the gates of this city on the Sabbath days, but to sanctify the Sabbath days and do no work therein, then there shall enter through the gates of this city kings and rulers, sitting on the throne of David and riding in their chariots and on their horses, they and their rulers, men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. This city itself shall be inhabited forever.” (Jer 17:18, 20–21)

This restatement of a prior command to hold the Sabbath reiterates a divine promise that the Lord would bless His people if they faithfully keep these weekly, appointed times. This is not so much because the people are seeking the blessing, though it plays a part, but because adherence witnesses to a desire to live by faith in God and His Word. While the Sabbath is specifically mentioned in Jeremiah, other feasts and festivals (Lev 23:1–44) were a regular part of the yearly calendar. I would dare say that God mentioned this one, because if the Sabbath can be kept, the others would come as a natural consequence.

Christians understand that the sacrifices, feasts, and festivals are fulfilled in Christ, so how are we to apply the same philosophy of faithful, righteous tradition to the Church? Attendance at Sunday worship is probably the most identifiable. Beginning with the apostolic age, we see a regular gathering at least once per week, usually on Sunday, but are there other traditions that equally as important? In the U.S., Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter are easily identified as important dates to set apart, which leads to another question: are these enough? I contend that we lack proper grounding when we neglect the church calendar.

Lectionaries and the lectio continuo (continual reading) have been a vital part of believing communal life since the synagogal system came into being and probably before. We can see an example from Jesus’ life wherein He was handed the Isaiah scroll for the regular reading (Luke 4:16–30). This practice is good and salutary that believers might know the whole counsel of God. There are three established lectionaries (one-year, three-year, and four-year) that have a basis in the life of our Lord Jesus, differing in which Gospel is followed for the year. This pattern keeps both pastor and parishioner on a consistent schedule. That said, I acknowledge that there are many pastors who preach through whole books of Scripture. May God bless their effort. However, the lectionary schedules are derived to annually follow Christ through a regular sequence of events and teachings, which leads to the church calendar.

As mentioned previously, Israel followed a regular cycle of feasts and festival, which were times of remembrance of God’s mercy, grace, and faithful work among them. The early believers borrowed from this regular remembrance to set aside seasons in which they might remember Christ in similar fashion, keyed on events in His life and work. Besides Christmas and Easter as specific days already mentioned, there were periods of time—Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Pentecost—and specific days—Ascension, Annunciation, Visit of Magi, etc. Besides these, depending on the denomination, there will be other special days to remember other biblical and martyred individuals—a practice from early post-apostolic times.

Why am I asking for a remembrance of the church year and lectionary? Because people are forgetful. If you do not believe me, read the Old Testament. When they were not actively being taught and reminding themselves of what the Lord desired, they quickly neglected, then abandoned, Him. Sure, there were small groups who remained faithful, but as a nation, they walked away and welcomed abominable practices picked up from the cultures around them. I am not advocating a political manifesto in hopes of setting America on a path to God, rather I desire for a return to a rhythm of Christian life once so prevalent, yet later jettisoned in favor of individual congregational needs, thus loosing ties to both the historical Church and fellow believers in our communities.

Selected Statements on Liturgical Worship

Church bodies that believe that the direct indwelling and experience of the Holy Spirit is to be sought independent of the Word and Holy Sacraments will be inclined to reject liturgical texts, music, and ceremony in favor of more ecstatic and emotional worship forms.

Wherever the pure gospel comes, there the great liturgy of the true church revives.  The Liturgy is important because the Gospel is important.

If worship is primarily something that we do, then we can never be certain we did enough.  Law questions ask, did people grow closer to Jesus?  Stronger in their faith?  This leads to additional questions.  How close is close enough?  How strong is strong enough?

There is also the assumption with this way of thinking that Jesus is to be found somewhere in the heart, and that the way to find Him is to feel His presence.  [This] leads to despair or arrogance and hypocrisy.  This is law worship.

Gospel worship works the other way.  In law worship, we bring our obedience and praise to God.  In Gospel worship, we bring our sin and sinfulness, and God brings His Gifts to us.

God is truly present in His Word and Body and Blood, forgiving sins, saving, sustaining, sanctifying, and strengthening our faith in Christ.  Rather, faith knows that Jesus is not just somehow close to us.  His own Words enter our ears and hearts, and the very Body and Blood of the Son of God are brought to our lips and mouths.  There is no need to get closer than this.

Timothy Quill, “Liturgical Worship,” Perspectives on Christian Worship: 5 Views

HT: Josh Brisby

Praise But Not Worship

Recently, I came upon a blog post by Christopher Smith, a Roman Catholic priest, entitled Let’s Revisit “Praise and Worship Music Is Praise But Not Worship,” in which he revisits to his blog post written four years prior critiquing and comparing Praise & Worship (P&W) music in relation to the liturgy.  I was fascinated by the enumerated points, because they gave more light to the problem of a P&W steady diet.  Here are his observations:

1. P&W music assumes that praise is worship.
2. P&W music assumes that worship is principally something we do.
3. P&W music assumes as its first principle relevance.
4. P&W music assumes as its second principle the active participation of a certain age group.
5. P&W music self-consciously divides the Church into age and taste groups.
6. P&W music subverts Biblical and liturgical texts during the Mass.
7. P&W music assumes that there can be a core of orthodox Catholic teaching independent of the Church’s liturgical law and tradition.
8. P&W music consciously manipulates the emotions so as to produce a catharsis seen as necessary for spiritual conversion.
9. P&W music confuses transcendence with feeling.
10. P&W music denies the force of liturgical and musical law in the Church in favor of arbitrary and individualist interpretations of worship.
11. P&W music prizes immediacy of comprehension and artistic ease over the many-layered meaning of the liturgy and artistic excellence.

In order to understand his points more fully, you need to read the original post which fleshes out each point.  (Those of my readers firmly ensconced in Evangelicalism will look at this list in befuddlement, wondering what it has to do with them since they do not have a liturgy.  Of course, they do not realize that they actually do have one, however informal it might be, and things are communicated by the type of liturgy used.  But I digress.)  Do you notice the pattern?  P&W music is shown to be either an incomplete expression of worship or something antithetical to the purpose of worship.

He ends with a list of corrective to be remembered:

1. The Church’s musical and liturgical tradition is an integral part of worship, and not a fancy addition.
2. While Praise is a high form of individual and small group prayer, it is not Worship as the Church understands the corporate public prayer of the Liturgy.
3. Worship is not principally something that we do: it is the self-offering of Jesus Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit, the fruits of which are received in Holy Communion. Worship is Sacrifice and Sacrament, not Praise.  
4. Relevance is irrelevant to a liturgy which seeks to bring man outside of space and time to the Eternal.
5. Participation in the liturgy is principally interior, by the union of the soul with the Christ who celebrates the liturgy.  Any externalizations of that interior participation are meaningless unless that interior participation is there.
6. The Church’s treasury of sacred music is not the province of one social-economic, age, cultural, or even religious group.  It is the common patrimony of humanity and history.
7. The Church must sing the Mass, i.e., the biblical and liturgical texts contained in the Missal and Gradual, and not sing at Mass man-made songs, if it is to be the corporate Worship of the Church and not just Praise designed by a select group of people.
8. Orthodox Catholic teaching on faith and morals must always be accompanied by respect for the Church’s liturgical and musical teaching and laws.
9. The deliberate intention to manipulate human emotions to produce a religious effect is abusive, insincere, and disrespectful of God’s power to bring about conversion in the hearts of man.
10. While music does affect the emotions, sacred music must always be careful to prefer the transcendent holiness of God over the immanent emotional needs of man.
11. The Church’s treasury of sacred music inspires and requires the highest attention to artistic excellence.  It is also an unfathomable gift to the Church, and must be presented to the faithful so that they may enjoy that rich gift.

My readers will balk at number three and rightfully so.  Jesus is not being presented once again as an offering: that work is done. However it is useful to point out that where Evangelicals will see worship as one way (us to God), the historic view is that of dialogue.  Worship begins with God’s revelation of Himself in His Word, and we respond, then more revelation, then more response, back and forth throughout the service.

Read both posts.  You may not understand the terminology or moving parts of liturgy, but consider the points mentioned in view of what your local assembly practices.  Maybe something will shake loose in a good way.

Right Worship Establishes Right Doctrine

Orthodoxia means “right praise” or “true worship” rather then “right doctrine.”  But, of course, the praise and worship is “right” only if its is directed to the right God.  Orthodox liturgy is that which prays to and worships the Holy Trinity.  Thus, while the relationship between praying and believing, the lex orandi and lex credendi, is a reciprocal one, the priority of right praise is such that the lex orandi establishes the lex credendi.  Prosper of Aquitaine wrote in the heat of the Semi-Pelagian controversy “legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi” (Let the rule of prayer establish the rule of belief).…

The evangelical content of liturgy has served sometimes as a corrective of the catholic tendency to root liturgy in the culture of the people.  Words and ceremonies are not always shorn of their heathen connotations.  Symbolic actions and objects can be a source of superstition among Christians, and their multiplication can lead to a ceremonial pomp that is foreign to the spirit of Christianity.  It is difficult to reconcile “chancel prancing” with worship done in spirit and truth.  The evangelical principle has served as a critique of the catholic substance of Christian liturgy.... The evangelical critique reminds us that when liturgy is too much shaped by cultural vitalities, it loses its ability to transcend culture or to transform the culture it seeks to address.

Frank Senn, Christian Liturgy

Worship Is Initiated by Christ to Our Behalf and for Our Participation

Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.  (Heb 8:1-2)

A theology of worship requires that we recognize the divine initiative in the divine-human encounter.  The only basis on which we can scribe to God “the glory due his name” is that God is already glorified in humanity by the incarnation of the Word.  Worship is not only what the congregation does; it is also what God does through the proclamation of the word and ministration of the sacraments.… A word that comes closer to incorporating both the divine and the human participation in worship is leitourgia.  It meant a service that was rendered on the people’s behalf by a representative; hence it is composed from words for work (ergon) and public (leïtos).… In subsequent use, “leitourgia” referred to religious rites performed to the public good.  The one who performs these services is a liturgist (leitourgos).…

Just as Paul was a leitourgos to the Gentiles,* and Epaphroditus was a leitourgos to Paul,† and just as the church from an early date appointed ministers (bishops, deacons, as in Didache 15:1) who could render the leitourgia to the congregation, so there is a venerable tradition that regards Christ as the true leitourgos to the people, their true high priest or presiding minister.  The liturgical role of Christ in the church has been given focus in the sacramental celebrations.  Thus Ephesians 5:25-32 uniquely states that Christ gave himself up for the church “in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.”  The church’s holiness and glory are those of Christ who gives himself for and to the church.  He makes the church his own by cleansing it “with the washing of water by the word.”  Christ the baptizer; the church and its ministers are only the instruments of his will.

Frank Senn, Christian Liturgy

* Romans 15:16
† Philippians 2:25, 30

Sunday Morning: Hanging Out or Showing Honor?

I have recently finished reading one book on liturgy and am about to dive into another.  Christians can and will disagree on the degree of formality in liturgy.  From formality based on desire for adherence to historical and denominational norms to informality derived from freedom in the gospel and the lack of specific texts in God’s word, a case can be made both directions after weighing factors of culture, literacy, biblical knowledge, historicity, etc. for the proper place and use of formal elements.

One factor I have noticed in my reading on liturgy (formal or informal) is the level of care and concern godly spiritual leaders over the centuries have had for worship.  In creating structure, they took pains to ensure that the overall movement (scripture lesson prior to Lord’s Supper), responsive readings, prayers, music, and movements worked together to as a unit to reinforce both the rightful place of the triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) with respective persons and work in the plan of redemption acknowledged and praised.  The original intent of the framers was always to fulfill a need based on solid doctrine and scriptural practices.

Aberrations entered both early and through the centuries necessitating changes in liturgy to accommodate alterations in doctrine and church polity.  One might ask what brought on the errors and allowed them to take so prominent role.  While the sinfulness of man and the ongoing work of Satan stand foremost, a subtle over-arching factor derived from these was the relative ease enjoyed by the church.  Consider this for a moment: moments of doctrinal clarity came during periods of great internal or external pressure—sometimes both.  During times of relative ease, error made its way more freely under the guise of inquiry or speculation.  The Church became comfortable and casual; doctrine and practice followed suit.

How does this past practice compare with today?  Western Christianity has enjoyed great ease in this world, so much so that we lack a sense of what is important.  The same comfortable and casual attitude described above permeates most every church body.  How do I know?  There are multitude examples among the celebrity pastor set, but they can be found in your backyard, maybe in your own body of believers.  Is every part of worship pointing to the Sovereign of the universe, or does it cater to me/us?  What comes from the pulpit?  Is it the terrors of Law and of God followed by the free gift of grace through Jesus Christ and sweet consolation of sins redeemed?  Review what is taught in Sunday School.  What or who is the focus?  Is it me or the Lord Jesus?  Does the congregation come with a lackadaisical attitude toward worship or with an expectation that God is present who is to be feared, or do we treat Hebrews 4:16 more like: Let us then casually draw near to the throne of grace, that we may hang out and feel loved in time of need?

Burnell Eckhardt wrote recently:

A people who have grown accustomed to being comfortable will be less inclined to take biblical injunctions against certain cultural trends seriously.  Do we still intend to maintain that homosexuality is sinful, or that women are ineligible to serve as pastors?  If your goal was to make people feel comfortable when they come to church, beware: such teaching might not fit that goal.  (Gottesdienst, Vol. 22.1)

How we treat God, how we view worship is directly related to the instruction received.  Each believer has an obligation to come before the Lord, both privately and corporately, with respect and honor.  That is His due and our privilege.  Teachers, do you prepare to effectively teach the lesson?  Preachers, do you teach the whole counsel of God concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment or offer up platitudes to not scare of the “unchurched?”

Comfortable and casual is good on vacation or other times when relaxation is in order, but the gathering of the church is not the place.  Coming into the Lord’s presence with singing, into His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise (Psa 100:2, 4) requires acknowledgement that he made us and we are His (Psa 100:3).  The Lord alone is good and has steadfast love and unending faithfulness (Psa 100:5).  Why not treat Sunday with the greatest honor?  We have an audience with our Redeemer and King.

Intelligent Worship Satisfies the Soul

Readers may have noticed that my last post on liturgy was quoted from a Lutheran source.  Recently, I purchased two used books dealing with Christian liturgy, because I have noticed a lack of depth in the range of expression within the context of informal worship.  Some questions I intend to answer: Are all the elements expressed through informal worship designed for the interaction of God and his people?  Is our Lord the focal point?  What emphases of formal liturgy can assist the informal liturgy?  Wise and godly men initially constructed liturgies using God’s word as the basis for worship.  We would do well to consider following that same intent in our day.  Choice nuggets will be posted as I go along, including the following:

The simpler and the clearer the liturgical structure and the higher the intelligence and spiritual abilities of the worshipers, the more fully will devotional satisfaction and benefit be realized.… The more complicated and mystical the liturgy and the less developed the worshipers, the less likely are the latter to participate actively or to receive actually the blessings inherent in their services.

Luther D. Reed, The Lutheran Liturgy, 43

What Characterizes Your Worship?

A remarkable feature of early Christian worship is its high degree of unity.  Notwithstanding fluidity of form in different places, there was substantial agreement in the essentials.  Services of the same kind were held everywhere.… With all its freshness and spontaneity, the public worship of the early church was characterized by dignity, simplicity, and restrained fervor.  Neither persecution nor the lack of institutional strength gave it a gloomy countenance.  Rather its forms were pervaded by  a spirit of peace, consolation, joy and thanksgiving.  Grave and moderate, the early church also possessed a richness and warmth not found in later Puritanism.  A common spirit determined what should be done and what should not be done.  The authority of leaders, and their agreement upon essential principles, undoubtedly account for liturgical unity as well as the larger unity of the church which confessed “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5).

Luther D. Reed, The Lutheran Liturgy, 38-39

Worship: Where the Trinity Is Confessed in Word and Song

But in the church I only know of one image, that is the image of the unseen God, of which God has said: “Let us make man in our image and our likeness;” that image of which it is written, that Christ is the brightness of his glory and the image of his person.  In that image I perceive the Father, as the Lord Jesus himself has said: “He that sees me sees the Father.”  For this image is not separated from the Father, which indeed has taught me the unity of the Trinity, saying: “I and my Father are one,” and again: “All things that the Father has are mine.”  Also of the Holy Spirit, saying that the Spirit is Christ’s, and has received of Christ, as it is written: “He shall receive of mine, and shall declare it unto you.”

They declare also that the people have been led astray by the strains of my hymns.  I certainly do not deny it.  That is a lofty strain, and there is nothing more powerful than it.  For what has more power than the confession of the Trinity which is daily celebrated by the mouth of the whole people?  All eagerly vie one with the other in confessing the faith, and know how to praise in verse the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  So they all have become teachers, who scarcely could be disciples.

Ambrose, On the Giving Up of the Basilicas 32, 34

Introduction to Christian Liturgy – First Thoughts

I have read the first two chapters of Introduction to Christian Liturgy by Frank Senn and wanted to get out a thought or two on the book.  He does not limit the definition of liturgy to a high form as found in Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, etc. traditions but recognizes that all bodies of believers adhere to a liturgy of some form however loosely.

I was struck by the following:

All of the major Reformers—Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, Jean Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, Olavus Petri—produced liturgical orders, sometimes two or more in which a development could be seen in their theological commitments and pastoral concerns. (p. 20)

Luther's German liturgy was familiar to me, but I was unaware of others, including that of the Anabaptists as documented by Balthasar Hubmaier.

Another point that jumped out was the legislation of liturgy in England.  These were the Acts of Uniformity which "required exclusive use of the Book of Common Prayer" (20).  Not surprisingly, this resulted in sudden disunity as various denominations rapidly splintered.  The reigning monarch might be the official head of the Church of England as its defender, but when the state oversteps its bounds, it cannot expect the church to continue in subservience.

I do question his heavy attribution of Roman influence in the early church.  He sees their worship designed more from culture than from scripture.  I do not altogether downplay the influence, but he seems to be intent on using that as a springboard to pursue cultural adaptation, rather than the God's word, as the driver for proper worship.

Reminiscing on the Liturgy

My early years found me in the Methodist church before and through the 1968 merger with the Evangelical United Brethren.  Thinking back on that time, I must admit that the regularity in the order of worship and church year is something I miss.  Why is that?  It certainly was not the sermon content each Sunday, since I was easily bored and looked for ways to spend my time, even occasionally reading my Bible: imagine my surprise upon discovering the great stories heard in Sunday School were actually found there.  Nor was I impressed by the collective fervor of the congregants who I could tell were going through required motions because the Order of Worship specified a certain action from the group.

What then held my attention during the hour-long periods over the years?  It was what I learned through creeds and hymns.  You see, I actually paid attention to those things.  From early childhood, solid biblical input was instilled through weekly readings from the Old and New Testaments according to the lectionary, as well as repetition of the Lord's Prayer, Apostle's Creed, and Nicene Creed, plus weekly singing of "Doxology" and "Gloria Patri," short choruses full of praise and acknowledgement to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the one God we worship.  Great hymns of the faith full of rich content were wonderfully accompanied by an organist.  And while the responsive readings were peculiar to me, I recognized that important things were being spoken.

While I remembered little to nothing of spiritual profit from what was taught from the pulpit, those things caught from the periphery were foundational for my later spiritual growth, after the rebellious years of later teens and early twenties.  And for this I am thankful and longing to recapture in a substantive way now decades removed from it.

Why does this longing arise?  From reading my blog, you know that I have a dissatisfaction with Evangelicalism as commonly practiced.  For many years my family met with the Plymouth Brethren which gave me opportunity to study my Bible and teach often: I am grateful.  Having been gone from that way of meeting a few years, I can objectively state the strengths and weaknesses of their practices.  Now in a non-denominational Bible church, I am firmly within the very church culture that currently annoys me.  I am not saying there is heresy—not by any means—but there is an abundant reliance on some undefined moving of the Holy Spirit in planning and decision-making.  I understand the mentality having seen it among the PBs previously, and it always bothered me then.  But I digress.

Am I just on a sentimental journey, remembering a past time in the best light?  That is possible, but assemblies such as mine could learn a thing or two from a more formal liturgy.  For instance, the lectionary was first concocted to teach Christ and the whole counsel of God.  Use it, whether the history one-year or the revised three-year.  This would help to keep the pastor from making topic changes in order to "scratch an itch."  We have enough of those where I attend, and they are annoying.  Also, we need songs with better content: I have blogged on that before, so I will not pursue it.  And, I miss repeating the creeds.  Absorbing those declarations was difficult at first, but what excellent, concise statements of faith they are, imperceptibly becoming part of me due to the repetition.  I dare say that my understanding of the Godhead had a thorough foundation because of them.

A danger looms in that congregants could slip into the same semi-catatonic state as liturgical groups who do not know preach the gospel or do not care that the gospel is being proclaimed.  And some would fear that there would only be hymns with the only organ instrumentation: as good as these are, they are not strictly required.  (I wonder how the divine liturgy of John Chrysostom would sound using a bluegrass band.)  And dare I say that the greatest objection would be that the Holy Spirit is being stifled.  Having been in the more free-form groups enough years, the issue is not structure, but desire.  A meeting of open sharing can grieve and subdue the Spirit just as quickly, and sometimes more so, as following a prescribed order.

Is this whole concept old-fashioned?  Yes and no.  They are certainly old, some portions even centuries old, but they are what the historic church regularly professed and maintained on a weekly basis.  On the other hand, because they are ancient, we know they are enduring.  The old is not kept because it is old, as certainly as the new is not introduced because it is new.  Neither tactic works.

As a parting thought to help articulate what I have been thinking, I offer the following from Bill Cwirla (Hacienda Heights, CA, 2003):

Though it’s often called “traditional worship” by those who engage in “contemporary worship,” that’s really only half the truth.  Liturgical worship is historic worship, the way Christians have been worshiping for nearly 2000 years.  Some of the phrases of the liturgy go all the way back to the new testament.  Liturgical worship is also biblical worship, not in the sense that the Bible demands we worship this way, but that nearly every word of the liturgy is a quotation from Scripture.  Liturgical worship is also Christocentric worship, with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness and life of the sinner right in the middle of everything.  That’s the important one, remember?

Worship While You Work

[Martin Luther insisted] that the command not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was simply a means whereby God established a form of external worship.  Adam and Eve were not intended to keep this commandment in order to earn their relationship with God but rather as a means whereby they might show their gratitude and love for God.¹  Similarly Gordon Wenham has observed in his writing on Genesis 1–2 that the activity of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is described using terminology and linguistic constructions similar to the account of the activity of the priests in the Tabernacle later in the Pentateuch.²  Faith therefore gives rise to freedom for vocation, which glorifies God by reflecting his glory.  Vocation is therefore a liturgical act.

Jack Kilcrease, "Kenosis and Vocation: Christ as the Author and Exemplar of Christian Freedom,"

Logia, Vol XIX, No. 4, 27.

¹ Luther's Works, American Edition, 1:104, 106
² Gordon Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” in Proceeding of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, ed. Moshe Goshen-Gottstein (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1988), 19–37. Wenham mentions verbal parallels in Nm 3:7–8, 8:26, 18:5–6.